WISSENSCHAFTLICHE WELTAUFFASSUNG:
DER WIENER KREIS
[The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle] 1
Dedicated to Moritz Schlick
PREFACE
At the beginning of 1929 Moritz Schlick received a very tempting call to
Bonn. After some vacillation he decided to remain in Vienna. On this
occasion, for the first time it became clear to him and us that there is
such a thing as the 'Vienna Circle' of the scientific conception of the
world, which goes on developing this mode of thought in a collaborative
effort. This circle has no rigid organization; it consists of people of an
equal and basic scientific attitude; each individual endeavours to fit in,
each puts common ties in the foreground, none wishes to disturb the
links through idiosyncrasies. In many cases one can deputise for another,
the work of one can be carried on by another.
The Vienna Circle aims at making contact with those similarly oriented
and ,at influencing those who stand further off. Collaboration in the Ernst
Mach Society is the expression of this endeavour; Sclick is the chairman
of this society and several members of Schlick's circle belong to the
committee.
On 15-16 September 1929, the Ernst Mach Society, with the Society
for Empirical Philosophy (Berlin), will hold a conference in Prague, on
the epistemology of the exact sciences, in conjunction with the conference
of the German Physical Society and the German Association of Mathematicians
which will take place there at the same time. Besides technical
questions, questions of principle are to be discussed. It was decided that
on the occasion of this conference the present pamplet on the Vienna
Circle of the scientific conception of the world was to be published. It is
to be handed to Schlick in October 1929when he returns from his visiting
professorship at Stanford University, California, as token of gratitude
and joy at his remaining in Vienna. The second part of the pamphlet
contains a bibliography compiled in collaboration with those concerned.
It is to give a survey of the area of problems in which those who belong
to, or are near to, the Vienna Circle are working.
Vienna, August 1929
For the Ernst Mach Society
Hans Hahn
Otto Neurath Rudolf Carnap
1. THE VIENNA CIRCLE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTION OF THE
WORLD
1.1. Historical Background
Many assert that metaphysical and theologising thought is again on the
increase today, not only in life but also in science. Is this a general phenomenon
or merely a change restricted to certain circles? The assertion
itself is easily confirmed if one looks at the topics of university courses
and at the titles of philosophic publications. But likewise the opposite
spirit of enlightenment and anti-metaphysical factual research is growing
stronger today, in that it is becoming conscious of its existence and task.
In some circles the mode of thought grounded in experience and averse
to speculation is stronger than ever, being strengthened precisely by the
new opposition that has arisen. .
In the research work of all branches of empirical science this spirit of
a scientific conception of the worldis alive. However only a very few leading
thinkers give it systematic thought or advocate its principles, and but
rarely are they in a position to assemble a circle of like-minded colleagues
around them. We find anti-metaphysical endeavours especially in England,
where the tradition of the great empiricists is still alive; the investigations
of Russell and Whitehead on logic and the analysis of reality have won
international significance. In the U.S.A. these endeavours take on the most
varied forms; in a certain sense James belongs to this group too. The
new Russia definitely is seeking for a scientific world conception, even
if partly leaning on older materialistic currents. On the continent of
Europe, a concentration of productive work in the direction of a scientific
world conception is to be found especially in Berlin (Reichenbach,
Petzoldt, Grelling, Dubislav and others) and in Vienna.
That Vienna was specially suitable ground for this development is
historically understandable. In the second half of the nineteenth century,
liberalism was long the dominant political current. Its world of ideas
stems from the enlightenment, from empiricism, utilitarianism and the
free trade movement of England. In Vienna's liberal movement, scholars
of world renown occupied leading positions. Here an anti-metaphysical
spirit was cultivated, for instance, by men like Theodor Gomperz who
translated the works of J. S. Mill,Suess, Jodl and others.
'Thanks to this spirit of enlightenment, Vienna has been leading in a
scientifically oriented people's education. With the collaboration of Victor
Adler and Friedrich Jodl, the society for popular education was founded
and carried forth; 'popular university courses' and the 'people's college'
were set up by the well-known historian Ludo Hartmann whose antimetaphysical
attitude and materialist conception of history expressed
itself in all his actions. The same spirit also.inspired the movement of the
'Free School' which was the forerunner of today's school reform.
In this liberal atmosphere lived Ernst Mach (born 1838) who was in
Vienna as student and as privatdozent (1861-64). He returned to Vienna
only at an advanced age when a special chair of the philosophy of the
inductive sciences was created for him (1895). He was especially intent on
cleansing empirical science, and in the first place, physics, of metaphysical
notions. We recall his critique of absolute space which made him a forerunner
of Einstein, his struggle against the metaphysics of the thing-in itself
and of the concept of substance, and his investigations of the construction
of scientific concepts from ultimate elements, namely sense data.
In some points the development of science has not vindicated his views,
for instance in his opposition to atomic theory and in his expectation
that physics would be advanced through the physiology of the senses.
The essential points of his conception however were of positive use in
the further development of science. Mach's chair was later occupied by
Ludwig Boltzmann (1902-06) who held decidedly empiricist views.
The activity of the physicists Mach and Boltzmann in a philosophical
professorship makes it conceivable that there was a lively dominant
interest in the epistemological and logical problems that are linked with
the foundations of physics. These problems concerning foundations also
led toward a renewal of logic. The path towards these objectives had also
been cleared in Vienni from quite a different quarter by Franz Brentano
(during 1874-80 professor of philosophy in the theological faculty, and
later lecturer in the philosophical faculty). As a Catholic priest Brentano
understood scholasticism; he started directly from the scholastic logic and
from Leibniz's endeavours to reform logic, while leaving aside Kant and
the idealist system-builders. Brentano and his students time and again
showed their understanding of men like Bolzano (Wissenschaftslehre,
1837) and others who were working toward a rigorous new foundation
of logic. In particular Alois HofIer (1853-1922) put this side of Brentano's
philosophy in the foreground before a forum in which, through Mach's
and Boltzmann's influence, the adherents of the scientific world conception
were strongly represented. In the Philosophical Society at the University
of Vienna numerous discussions took place under Hofler's direction,
concerning questions of the foundation of physics and allied!
epistemological and logical problems. The Philosophical Society published
Prefaces and Introductions to Classical Works on Mechanics (1899), as
well as the individual papers of Bolzano (edited by Hofler and Hahn,
1914 and 1921). In Brentano's Viennese circle there was the young
Alexius von Meinong (1870-82, later professor in Graz), whose theory
of objects (1907) has certainly some affinity to modern theories of concepts
and whose pupil Ernst Mally (Graz) also worked in the field of logistics.
The early writings of Hans Pichler (1909) also belong to these circles.
Roughly at the same time as Mach, his contemporary and friend Jose
Popper-Lynkeus worked in Vienna. Beside his physical and technical
achievements we mention his large-scale, if unsystematic philosophical
reflections (1899) and his rational economic plan (A General Peacetime
Labour Draft, 1878). He consciously served the spirit of enlightenment,
as is also evident from his book on Voltaire. His rejection of metaphysics
was shared by many other Viennese sociologists, for example Rudolf
Goldscheid. It is remarkable that in the field of political economy, too,
there was in Vienna a strictly scientific method, used by the marginal
utility school (Carl Menger, 1871); this method took root in England,
France and Scandinavia, but not in Germany. Marxist theory likewise
was cultivated and extended with special emphasis in Vienna (Otto
Bauer, Rudolf Hilferding, Max Adler and others).
These influences from various sides had the result, especially since 1900,
that there was in Vienna a sizeable number of people who frequently and
assiduously discussed more general problems in close connection with
empirical sciences. Above all these were epistemological and methodological
problems of physics, for instance Poincare's conventionalism,
Duhem's conception of the aim and structure of physical theories (his
translator was the Viennese Friedrich Adler, a follower of Mach, at that
time privatdozent in Zurich); also questions about the foundations of
mathematics, problems of axiomatics, logistic and the like. The following
were the main strands from the history of science and philosophy that
came together here, marked by those of their representatives whose
works were mainly read and discussed:
(1) Positivism and empiricism: Hume, Enlightenment, Comte, J. S.
Mill, Richard Avenarius, Mach.
(2) Foundations, aims and methods of empirical science (hypotheses in
physics, geometry, etc.): Helmholtz, Riemann, Mach, Poincare, Enriques,
Duhem, BoItzmann, Einstein.
(3) Logistic and its application to reality:. Leibniz,.: Peano, Frege,
Schroder, Russell, Whitehead, Wittgenstein.' ,
(4) Axiomatics: Pasch, Peano, Vailati, Pieri, Hilbert.
(5) Hedonism and positivist sociology: Epicurus, Hume, Bentham,
J. S. Mill, Comte, Feuerbach, Marx, Spencer, Mtiller-Lyer, Popper-
Lynkeus, Carl Menger (the elder).
1.2. The Circle around Schlick .
In 1922 Moritz Schlick was called from Kiel to Vienna. His activities
fitted well into the historical development of the Viennese scientific, atmosphere.
Himself originally a physicist, he awakened to new life the
tradition that had been started by Mach and BoItzann and, in a certain
sense, carried on by the anti-metaphysically inclined Adolf Stohr. (In
Vienna successively: Mach, Boltzmann, Stehr, Schlick; in Prague: Mach,
Einstein, Philipp Frank.) .
Around Schlick, there gathered in the course of time a circle whose
members united various endeavours in the direction of a scientific conception
of the world. This concentration produced a fruitful mutual inspiration.
Not one of the members is a so-called 'pure' philosopher; all
of them have done work in a special field of science. Moreover they come
from different branches of science and originally from different philosophic
attitudes. But over the years growing uniformity appeared; this
too was a result of the specifically scientific attitude: "What can be said
at all, can be said clearly" (Wittgenstein); if there are differences of
opinion, it is in the end possible to agree, and therefore agreement is
demanded. It became increasingly clearer that a position not only free
from metaphysics, but opposed to metaphysics was the common goal of all.
The attitudes toward questions of life also showed a noteworthy
agreement, although these questions were not in the foreground of themes
discussed within the Circle. For these attitudes are more closely related
to the scientific world-conception than it might at first glance appear
from a purely theoretical point of view.:For instance, endeavours toward
a new organization of economic and social relations, toward the unification
of mankind, toward a reform of school and education, all show an inner
link with the scientific world-conception; it appears that these endeavours
are welcomed and regarded with sympathy by the members of the Circle,
some of whom indeed actively further them.
The Vienna Circle does not confine itself to collective work as a closed
group. It is also trying to make contact with the living movements of the
present, so far as they are well disposed toward the scientific world-conception
and turn away from metaphysics and theology. The Ernst Mach
Society is today the place from which the Circle speaks to a wider public.
This society, as stated in its program, wishes to "further and disseminate
the scientific world-conception. It will organize lectures and publications
about the present position of the scientific world-conception, in order to
demonstrate the significance of exact research for the social sciences and
the natural sciences. In this way intellectual tools should be formed for
modern empiricism, tools that are also needed in forming public and private
life." By the choice of its name, the society wishes to describe its basic
orientation: science free of metaphysics. This, however, does not mean
that the society declares itself in programmatic agreement with the individual
doctrines of Mach. The Vienna Circle believes that in collaborating
with the Ernst Mach Society it fulfils a demand of the day: we have to
fashion intellectual tools for everyday life, for the daily life of the scholar
but also for the daily life of all those who in some way join in working at
the conscious re-shaping of life. The vitality that shows itself in the efforts
for a rational transformation of the social and economic order, permeates
the movement for a scientific world-conception too. It is typical of the
present situation in Vienna that when the Ernst Mach Society was founded
in November 1928, Schlick was chosen chairman; round him the
common work In the field of the scientific world-conception had concentrated
most strongly.
Schlick and Philipp Frank jointIy edit the collection of Monographs on
the Scientific World-Conception [Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung)
in which members of the Vienna Circle preponderate.
2. THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD CONCEPTION
The scientific world conception is characterised not so much by theses of
its own, but rather by its basic attitude, its points of view and direction
of research. The goal ahead is unified science. The endeavour is to link
and harmonise the achievements of individual investigators in their various
fields of science. From this aim follows the emphasis on collective efforts,